The Efforts to Reintroduce the Mongol Tradition in the Crimean Khanate at the beginning of the 17th century: Baysa, Tat ve Tavgach »

• Main Author: Dariusz Kołodziejczyk
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: State Institution «Sh.Marjani Institute of History of Tatarstan Academy of Sciences» 2015-09-01
• Series: Zolotoordynskoe Obozrenie
• Subjects: Crimean Khanate; Tatars; chancery; seals; cultural brokers.
• Online Access: http://goldhorde.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/%D0%97%D0%9E-3-2015-91-101.pdf

The author examines the different ways, by which foreign borrowings were adopted in the Office of the Crimean Khanate. On the one hand, Tatars adopted specimens from the Moscow and Polish-Lithuanian Chancelleries (e.g. pendant seal), on the other hand, they sought to maintain and even restore ancient terminology related to the Genghisid and Central Asian tradition. Baysa with inscription providing certain rights and privileges on behalf of the ruler was used in the Genghisid Empire and ulus of Jochi. The first Crimean Tatar document, where we meet the term baysa, is a Charter of Shert sent by khan Mehmed III Giray to tsar Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov in September 1624. In 1634, Janibek Giray also wrote about the “golden baysa” apparently as a synonym of seal. Until the mid–17th century, mention of baysa occurs only in the text of the Crimean Charters of Shert sent to Moscow. From 1654, charters with a golden baysa was sent to the Polish king as well. A new form of solemn khan’s charters began to change under the influence of the development of office practice in Moscow and Warsaw. In the same period in the khan’s intitulation appears the formula “the great Padishah of Tat ve Tavgach” – new elements related to the Genghisid and ancient Turkic tradition of Central Asia. Consequently, according to the author, the latter change could be associated with the activities of Shahin Giray and his stay in Persia, or this innovation was imported from the Siberian Khanate.